1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording and reproducing apparatus, and more particularly to the management of information data files to be recorded on or reproduced from a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Apparatuses configured to record or reproduce digital video or audio data on or from disk recording media have been known in the prior art. In such apparatuses, information data are generally recorded or reproduced as files using a file system, such as UDF (Universal Disk Format) or FAT (File Allocation Tables).
In addition, recently, digital video cameras have come onto the market, which record and reproduce captured video data on or from disk recording media or memory cards. These video cameras are already equipped with the function of transmitting a part of recorded video data to a printer for printing, the function of displaying a thumbnail view of recorded images, the function of automatically reproducing and displaying a series of images selected from recorded images in a given order in a slide show, or the like.
In this case, the above function is implemented by creating a management file indicative of a group of image data to be printed or a management file for managing a group of image data to be reproduced in a slide show. Such a management file is managed and processed by an application program associated with the above function.
The recording capacity of a disk recording medium or a memory card for use with video cameras is dramatically increasing yearly. Along with this increase, the number of files recordable in a single recording medium is also increasing. In addition, various editing functions utilizing characteristics of a random-access recording medium, such as a disk recording medium or a memory card, represent features of such a type of video camera.
Accordingly, in order to meet the increased recording capacity of recording media or the increased functions of apparatuses, various methods of effectively managing recording contents have been proposed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-247488 (corresponding to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. U.S. 2003/0049029 A1) and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-278996.
However, in cases where an application program accesses each file directly using a file system, as in a conventional system, as the number of files or the number of groups increases, it becomes difficult to manage these files or groups in a lump. Therefore, it takes a long time to search for necessary information.
Furthermore, when a file is to be identified via the file system, the type of the file must be determined only from the file extension. Therefore, if video or audio files have the same type of file extension, it is difficult to distinguish these files. This hinders speedy searching.
In addition, when a plurality of recorded files are reproduced in a time-series manner, it is necessary to access all of the files and rearrange them in the order of time of recording. In this case, it is possible to hold time-series information by exercising ingenuity in defining a directory structure or file names. However, the degree of freedom for the directory structure or file names decreases, causing inconvenience with respect to file management.
Moreover, if the above-described management file is used, it is necessary to create a management file for every group. Therefore, in order to obtain information about the members or the like included in each management file, it is necessary to open and check each management file. This is troublesome and inconvenient in respect of file management. In addition, since different formats are applied to the respective application programs using management files, there is a problem with versatility in that one management file cannot be used by different application programs.
Furthermore, even if a management file dedicated to an application program is used, the application program accesses each file directly using the file system. Therefore, the problem that it takes a long time to search for necessary information remains unsolved.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-247488, contents can be managed as index files. In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-278996, a virtual directory different from a file system is created, so that contents can be managed for every folder.
However, in the above applications, if a consumer apparatus having a relatively low processing performance with respect to the increasing amount of content is used, operationality lowers when the processing performance for index files or folder management is insufficient. Therefore, a further improvement is required in content management.
Furthermore, in the above applications, highly functional content management cannot be applied to low-cost, low-performance apparatuses in terms of processing capability and display capability.